June 2010 Usenet News
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Brein (Dutch Anti Piracy Group) is suing Usenet provider http://www.news-service.com/ on claims that it facilitates copyright infringement and is demanding that the company ceases to offer copyright material or face fines of 50,000 euros per day. This is a closely watched case in the Usenet industry – More details on torrentfreak –> http://torrentfreak.com/brein-wants-usenet-provider-to-start-filtering-100501/
Microsoft, as detailed on cnet -http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html, plans to end support for more than 4,000 old-style newsgroups starting next month, pushing users instead to discussion forums such as those found on the Microsoft Answers, TechNet, and MSDN sites.
Editorial Note: While supporting Usenet maybe difficult for Microsoft, Usenet is far from dead and in fact appears to be expanding.
Also prominently featured in Usenet news in the month of May – Newzbin decided to call it quits after just a few short weeks. Other intriguing details the source code was stolen and Newzbin and Newzxxx domains have reincorporated under a Seychelles-based owner.
Torrentfreak (http://torrentfreak.com/newzbin-and-newzxxx-domains-have-new-seychelles-based-owner-100526 ) and Arstechnica, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/newzbin-soon-to-be-back-from-the-dead-following-code-theft.ars, both write about how the Newzbin source code was stolen and that we should expect a reemergence of Newzbin on some other server.
Finally Duke university has shut down the original Usenet server http://news.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html , which provided access to a worldwide electronic discussion network of newsgroups (Usenet) started in 1979 by two Duke graduate students, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis.
